PushDustIn is the founder and administrator of Source Gaming. Being obsessed with the history and development of games isn’t easy. Building a reputation on his research, translations, and article write ups, PushDustIn fully encapsulates the meaning of a 'data-miner'. PushDustIn has studied Japanese for over six years, and has lived in Japan for over four. The name PushDustIn comes from a garbage can in Osaka (Push Dust In). He lives with a very spoiled cat named Kuma.

Pichu seems like one of those characters very few players truly loved (in Melee) except those looking for a challenge (ex. Mew2King), solely because of that whole ‘attacks damage itself’ gimmick that was lifted from the anime. However, if Smash for Switch (port, new game or otherwise) retains the knockback increase depending on the attacker’s damage, buffs Pichu’s speed and attack output compared to Pikachu’s, it could prove to make the character into a difficult but deadly fighter compared to its more popular evolution.

In my opinion, it’s hard to think whether Pichu’s gonna return or not. His popularity really depend at this moment, which we see many like the comments above to see him return, but some denies as being a hated character since Melee. In a negative meaning, Pichu is definitely an unique character, but being more on a suicidal type of character. He’ll damage himself whenever he attacks, and that make’s him more vulnerable and weak in many ways, which many players believe such character with that feature is unwanted. However, due to this, Pichu was made as for advanced players, which his features were meant to be challenging whether players could win the game by overcoming many risks. So his popularity at this moment is 50/50, but in my case, I wouldn’t think Pichu would return at any form.

But much more, although Pichu was nothing but a joke character, I do think his inclusion was reflected by his popularity through the movies. Just like how Mewtwo and Lucario was reflected from their movies, while Greninja was originally chosen through the pre-released Pokemon X/Y artwork but later reflected from the anime and became the #1 popular Pokemon, Pichu may have reflected from the movies as well, including his side-story anime. Pichu’s popularity was strong back in the Pokemon Gen 2 era, but later decreased after Gen 3 came out. Well it did revive with the appearance of that…Giza-Mimi Pichu in Gen 4, but that was due to Gen 2’s remake, and once again decreased after Gen 5 came. Pichu’s rejection might have affected due to his loss of social popularity, and since we haven’t seen Pichu returning in the anime or movies today, I think Pichu may not return to Smash due to that point as well. But this is just my theoretical opinion, because not every Pokemon in Smash would be reflected from the anime. But eventually, it really depends…